Monday, July 26, 2010

dates like kites

eli clare's book of poetry 'the marrow's telling' spins in its interludes some beautiful imagery of kites.
i flew my kite for hours on end, spinning line out, red tail hawks keening on the updrafts, sun and wind reaching through me.
but its a tug of a kite beyond nostalgia. its an idea about stories and spaces. silences and echos. i've been on lots of lovely dates lately. and i've gradually stopped thinking of them as trials, of do or die. of make a move or look like a loser, because its all just noise. and isn't there already so much old music?

you are pressure to perform but i resist. performing. you make me just wanna be. and tell you my stories too fast. i liked it when we had to pause last saturday. and wait to say the next thing. wearing our own eager conversation out. but a running camcorder in an art gallery with park equipment indoors outfitted my mind just the same with our synchronized swinging and head thrown back laughing. you're elegant like not noticing the way tablecloth corners happen to neatly fall below soldier fork-knife-spoon. you take off thursday. and i think it doesn't matter like it would last year. you're not the hope of a hope. just a barstool til 2am beside me while friends danced nearby and we couldn't tear ourselves apart neatly, evenly. i'd finish your beer as you walked alone out the door that would soon be kicking my ass each time we watch our shaky footage.

spinning line out, i listened to the hills echo, keen, reverberate, cradling the red tail's lonely call.

i can barely get my groceries in the fridge fast enough to meet you parked outside my dark apartment. i came outside before even receiving your text, knowing somehow you'd never come in to get me. my throat was starting to ache with damp neglect and two nights under drunk stars-more-than-skies. but we drove. we drove as the wands of the gods crashed down around us. you were all business. ballcap concealing the back of a freshly buzzed head, you put on 'white sky' to duoro and explained weather conditions like a scientist making conversation. the sturdy backrest prevented any weak knee nonsense but the orchestra outside fogging windows surely made the steam inside the car quiver.

let story be that kite, wild blue of sky, tug and beckon, dialogue and demand.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

will you

they're on top of each other
those boys
wrestling in the coatroom
as i watched
(always had a thing for watching)

wesley and mikey
it was valentine's day
i had a crush on wesley
and spelled out my affection with a $2 hallmark and some
plastic gold letters
finally a face emerges
beat from the tousle

jessica loves you
are you gonna kiss?
mikey taunts
to a flustered other boy
no! i don't even think
she can kiss!

it was true
at 9
these lips puckered only
for lemon jelly and sour patch kids.
but its incredible
the things we learn

short leg strong

i wake up late
stare at the cheesies on the floor
and the shoes still on my feet
and the sun through the
christ what time is it windows
of my bedroom

racing the coffee pot
with a before work shower
i make a pact with the old spice body wash
i bought on one of those
'this is a lot of body wash and smells like the sorts of boys who make my knees weak'
impulses,
to quit drinking
(note to self - this smell turns showering into
ahem. long showering)

maybe if i just switch to light beer?
don't get me wrong
i respect nondrinkers
and smoothies
and freshly squeezed organic juices
and livers just not into
that kind of thing
consent is sexy

but i
am the kinda guy
who learned quite young
that i'd rather say yes to a fight
a challenge
a shot and a bar to dance on top of
than no
i can't
i'm not like you
my body is small
and 87 pounds
and riddled with words like
arthrogryposis
scoliosis
and that one leg shorter than the other
swaggerotosis

so i push myself
i ignore the red flags
while i hoist the rainbow ones
i will dance til the morning
and still find flicker in my eyes to walk you home
and linger in your doorway-
give in my bones to
push past your layers
of skin
and sensibility-
burn in my muscles to
drive until dawn
until i can feel you
fall asleep
around me

a friend of mine told me not to let it go to my head
this american able stuff
this art star famous stuff
and i find that funny
somehow
because its not about vanity
or humility
but dichotomy
i don't need to be on the screens of the TTC
to have one more asshole
tell me
how inspiring i am
its a distraction
the disabled distraction
if you're a fucking hero
no one has to sort out their shit
we can just smile or cry

i heard that one of the people detained
during the G20
was beaten with his own prosthetic leg
he worked for Revenue Canada
and i gotta say
when i read that
i couldn't stop laughing
man
here i was
stuck in peterborough
wishing i could protest with my disabled comrades
from DAMN2025
having to read Anne's speech online instead
about the money spent on securing
the fate of those secure nation leaders
and the money cut
from the diets of the special, disabled and poor
by our nation's leader
and buddy is knocked out with his own leg
shit.
i couldn't have written a better metaphor
he's not a hero
he's just another person getting whacked by the phallus of capitalism
and god if only that was a sexier thing to watch

i was kicked out of the washroom at woody's once
because i wasn't in there alone
but when that scuzzy door swung open
the 6 foot bar man
looked at me so fast he needed
to tell you
that you could take me upstairs
for the key
to the accessible
stall-
his apologies

the choice
between tired
from banging my head on the same wall
or tired
from too many cocktails
and un-healthy decisions
makes me wonder
what health even means
feminist fighter
betty friedan once said
that if we take care of the day
the night will take care of itself
but i think
sometimes
you gotta take the night like a lover by the hand
walk with her up to the bar
and slam down the key to the accessible
washroom
after 45 minutes
of

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

NEED HELP.

k guys.

im performing at ryerson on thursday night. and they want me to do like 10minutes of material. but, i havent written any new poetry in a while. and i like doing new & relevant stuff...


sooo i was thinking.

are there any blog posts you like that i could read as prosetry? bloggetry? ah?

ideally, since its an event called 'cripruption', it would have something to do with disability.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

you're not coming home tonight

i'm working on getting back into the poetry headspace so that i have nice bundle of new stuff to perform next week at cripruption- a disability event at ryerson i've been asked to perform at.

who was it that said
if we succeed in the day
the night will take care
of itself
was it friedman or
mcclung
or de beauvoir
or whatshername

as much as i like solid
arity
i don't know how true
a thing this is
for me

it has been my experience that the night doesn't take care of itself. and all this fighting for a cause makes for days tricking nights into knees weak from tripping.

i was supposed to love and trust the feminist women like i was supposed to love and trust the christians like i was supposed to love and trust the doctors because we're all human right?

but its the night that is more honest than the day. the nights like last, which found me in a sunroom smoking unnecessary cigarettes and sipping whiskey til the sky caved and begged for some.

you soft spoken indie hipster boy with beautiful round sides. and you called me kiddo, curled, face to face with boy to boy underwear. i leaned in to kiss you, not to fight morning but to find the extra whiskey and cigarettes. stubble and sweet i lay there and can think of the friends of mine swearing they'll never sleep beside men.

and i get it. but also, it reminds me of church. and her.

it is often the powerlessness in them hers that can sabotage the strength in me.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

back pieces

so...

all this tattoo talk and internet surfing and i've found another idea.



i've often though about the idea of getting a backpiece but my back has been my canvas in so many ways, so i've shied away from the daunting idea of 'coming up with' some sort of art to be worn there.

until now, that is.

amanda wachob is a tattoo artist based out of nyc. i found her stuff randomly on an image search, but browsing her portfolio, i stumbled across the idea of 'abstract' tattoo art.

can you imagine? strokes and pauses with a brush made all over my back. where scars are nestled. lines chosen, lines imposed, lines of stretched skin, lines of aged skin, and lines of bones beneath flesh.

i doubt i could make it to nyc before the fall... maybe end of summer... but i'd love to let this artist 'play' on my back.

"hopped a train and brother did we fly" - a postcard (and a misquoted townes van zandt)

ruby asked me if i get lonely.


it was midnight and i was still in my office, for some reason. instead of writing a paper for stephen's take home exam, i wrote a play. and that day, that day was the mandolin's last day in peterborough before the yukon. and it was that day that his postcard arrived.

i tried to explain to ruby the difference in one day, of knowing i would miss someone, and actually experiencing that absence. we played an acoustic gig that evening and it wasn't there...the magical second row. and it stung... like a million tiny stings. the transition from something you loved without abandon, into something signifying loss.

yet. another. thing.


but loss isn't lonely.

lonely is different. last night, the palpable loneliness was incredible. i picked a fight with ruby (or partially...mostly in my mind) for leaving carelessly for toronto and the pride festivities. in made me nervous. about our grand plans for the following fall - pick a queer-friendly US city and start fresh. do graduate work.

i suddenly felt ...less secure. ruby is a variable all her own. she, like everyone else, is outside of me. in fact, according to lacan, i am outside of me, in part.

when one of my favourite couple friends decided to stay in, and with ruby away, meaghan travelling, c falling in love with i and ever so far away emotionally, d literally so far away- even though i've 'gotten over it'... i just... sobbed.

maybe because my life is quite contented right now. i have multiple jobs (two and a half?), ambitions, school (and praises), and am no less social and flirty like i've always been.

but i guess i've always been the kind of guy that doesn't cut their world right open, hoping for a partner to complete the unit. i wish i was sometimes. not to say, having a partner is always better than not. but, i'm not convinced i know how to want that. and it seems to be such a priority in many... all?... my friends lives. and its terrifying. at least with d around, i was able to live for years inside an unrequited, unhealthy, dramatic friendship that was ever-present in my life. strange thing to say? well...i mean, it kept me occupied.

last night was indeed loneliness. and age.

i'm 25. i think i was half disheartened that i wasn't wooed like ruby by a scene and a dancefloor that has won me over so many nights before. it felt like i had not only gotten over emotional love canyons like d, but also, and perhaps more, a younger self. or, an expired self.

the horror. the horror.

every summer...for the past 4 summers, i've talked about my dream of going sky diving. i fear large bodies of water, and air-rated lawns (don't ask). but the sky...falling... i love falling. my memories of hang gliding in peru still exhilerate me.

and as i was watching 'last holiday' (terrible movie) and trying to cheer myself up, i thought 'hell. i have the money now. this year, this year i should do it'.

and actually, i think its a poignant time. i've been wanting to do it for the thrill. the feeling. and okay, maybe the metaphor. but now, i'm starting to think i need to do it for the fear.

"Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things." -AE

amelia. queen of the skies. i'm going to get an amelia bust tattooed on my right deltoid. i've been saving that real estate for something important and i think this all ties in quite nicely. i think that's the sort of person i am. my fear is most definitely in the little things. its the exhileration of the things so much bigger than me that fuel my journey.

perhaps i would do well to reflect on some of her words more often. in reality, these sorts of personal adventures are never wasted. nor do they claim me as separate from companionship. they just... make me poly lovers with the sky. and that is not something to underrate.

"The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship." -AE